The morning after the storm, when the charcoal-burners returned to their fires, they found two dead bodies amidst the ashes. One of them had a stab in his breast, which had caused his death. The other was frightfully disfigured, and bore marks of the fangs of some savage animal. In that wild district, the skirmishing-ground of smugglers and _douaniers_, the mountaineers think little of such occurrences. A hole was dug, the bodies thrown into it; and a cross, rudely cut upon the rock, alone marks the spot where the midnight conflict took place.
The _Francesco Primo_ was to leave the harbour at ten o'clock. Better acquaintance with Mediterannean _pyroscaphs_, as they call themselves, whose axle-trees turn not except when the police pleases, ought to have led us to all the latitude of uncertainty; but when two hours and more had elapsed with all the passengers aboard, we began to suppose some extraordinary cause for so long a detention. A deputation is accordingly dispatched to the captain, which brings back an abrupt reply, that he is not going _yet_; and that it is for him and the proprietors to be dissatisfied, who are wasting steam, while we are only losing patience. It shortly transpired that he was under Government orders, and would not proceed for another hour at _least_, nor even then, unless he received permission from the minister of police. The affair now looked serious. We must have some _carbonaro_ on board, who was, in due time, to be arrested; and no further doubt could remain of this, when, that other hour being past, we saw a longboat leaving shore, with two officers and six stout rowers, who soon brought her under our bow. What can it be? The senior epaulet rises in the boat--the second follows his example--both are on deck; the captain, hitherto unseen, now comes forward with alacrity, and, stretching forward _both_ his hands, receives with profound reverence a thin, square enclosure, with an immense seal attached to it, and retires to put it in a place of safety. The uniforms disappear over the side of the vessel--the paddles begin to paw the water--we swing round--and in a few seconds our prow points for the _Sorrentine_ coast, and we are on our watery way to _Sicily_. What, then, had detained us? It is always very provoking to have a miserable solution of a promising mystery! We were on the exact spot for a new edition of some "_Verbosa et grandis Epistola_" from the tyrants of the land; and so it was, but only not _from_ Capreæ or Tiberius this time. Yes! The actual cause of the delay of a great steam-boat, full of passengers, for three hours, attended, among other melancholy results, with that of exciting the choler of a new-made cardinal, was a _letter_ that the Queen of Naples, who had probably overslept herself, had occasion to write to the king on conjugal affairs!--his majesty having left her majesty only the day before, to show himself to his loving subjects at Palermo. Hem! Campania _felix_! If we were known to be inditing this unreverential passage, and its disloyal apostrophe, we should, no doubt, be invited to leave "Campania the happy" at a day's notice; whereas our comfort is, that this day three months it is quite possible that it will have been read in Bengal!